How difficult is it to get a deal with Orbitz or ITS for access to this data? Do you need a bizdev guy to talk them out of a six figure annual commitment?
I've got a very different travel idea, and would love to be able to try it out, and send everyone to Orbitz to book it if they end up finding what they want on my site.
But without the data it is very hard to experiment in making a better travel site.
The main reason flight search is so far behind the rest of the tech world is that the inventory is so difficult to access. You have to either be very well connected and able to persuade one of the gatekeepers to give you access on a trial basis, or have money to purchase data from commercial suppliers like ITA, OAG, ATPCO, each of which is hugely costly and limited in the type of data they provide and the completeness of coverage.
For bootstrapping a travel search product, you're best to get busy building crawlers to scrape airline websites directly.
Look up the affiliate link on orbitz site and start from there. I think you'll find it pretty easy to at least start something out. If you have no special needs above the api they offer their affiliates, then you will be good to go pretty quickly. If not with Orbitz, try booking.com or expediaaffiliate.com
I've got a very different travel idea, and would love to be able to try it out, and send everyone to Orbitz to book it if they end up finding what they want on my site.
But without the data it is very hard to experiment in making a better travel site.